Grace VanderWaal
Grace Avery VanderWaal (born January 15, 2004) is an American singer-songwriter. She earned wide notice at an early age and is known for her distinctive vocals, often accompanying herself on the ukulele. VanderWaal conducted her first concert tour in 2017 in support of Just the Beginning. She toured for a second time in mid-2018 with Imagine Dragons in their Evolve World Tour. VanderWaal began her musical career by posting videos of her original songs and covers on YouTube and performing at open mic nights near her hometown of Suffern, New York. In September 2016, at age 12, she won the eleventh season of the NBCTV competition show America's Got Talent (AGT), singing her original songs. In December 2016, she released her first EP, Perfectly Imperfect, on the Columbia Records label. In November 2017, she released a full-length album, Just the Beginning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_VanderWaal Early Life VanderWaal was born near Kansas City, Kansas, to Tina and David VanderWaal, who lived in Lenexa at the time. Her father is of Dutch descent. When he became a vice president of marketing at LG Electronics in 2007, the family moved to Suffern, New York. VanderWaal has an older brother and sister. After winning America's Got Talent, VanderWaal was home-schooled and enrolled in online courses for 7th grade but returned to attending a public school for 8th and 9th grades.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_VanderWaal#Family_and_education Early Music VanderWaal began singing and making up songs at the age of three. As a preteen, she found songwriting inspiration by watching movies and trying to imagine what a character was feeling, and "what it would be like if I were them, and wrote a song." She decided to learn the ukulele after watching the family's Brazilian au pair play and seeing a Twenty One Pilots video on YouTube. She asked for one for her 11th birthday but her mom refused, thinking she'd never learn to play it. Then she bought one on her own using money she had received for her 11th birthday, and watched more videos to teach herself how to play. She also played the saxophone in her school's marching band. In 2015, VanderWaal began to record song covers and original songs, accompanying herself on ukulele, and to post them on her YouTube channel. She includes among her musical influences such artists as Jason Mraz, Twenty One Pilots and Katy Perry. She also began to perform during open mic events at small venues near her home and to study music theory. In July 2016, after her audition on AGT, VanderWaal performed at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern and then at the RamapoSummer Concert Series at Palisades Credit Union Park.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_VanderWaal#Early_musical_efforts Career 2016: America's Got Talent On June 7, 2016, VanderWaal auditioned for the eleventh season of NBC's talent competition show AGT, singing her original song about identity, "I Don't Know My Name". She was selected by one of the show's judges, Howie Mandel, as his "golden buzzer" act to skip the next round and perform in the live quarterfinal round.2024 Simon Cowell called VanderWaal "the next Taylor Swift."25 Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone magazine termed the song an "emotional, catchy, quirky tune".26 VanderWaal continued to perform her original songs on the show; for her next performance at the quarterfinals on August 23, 2016, she sang "Beautiful Thing", a song that she wrote for her sister.27 For the semifinals on August 30, she performed "Light the Sky",20 and for the September 13 finals, she sang "Clay", a song about dealing with bullies.28AGT's video of VanderWaal's audition has accumulated more than 95 million views.29 It was ranked as the No. 5 trending YouTube video of 2016.30 VanderWaal again performed "I Don't Know My Name" at the September 14 finale episode, then introduced a performance by Stevie Nicks, who compared her own style with VanderWaal's.31 At the end of the broadcast, VanderWaal was announced as the season 11 winner.32 She was the second female winner and the second child act winner in the show's history.25 Post-''America's Got Talent'' VanderWaal planned to use part of her AGT winnings to make a donation to charity and to buy two tree houses, built by the team from Treehouse Masters, for herself and her sister.33 VanderWaal was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in September 2016,34 and she headlined four sold-out concerts in the PH Showroom at the Las Vegas Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in October, performing with other AGT finalists.35 She also headlined the America's Got Talent Holiday Spectacular in December on NBC, where she performed her arrangement of "Frosty the Snowman".36 VanderWaal signed a recording deal with Columbia Records in September 201637 and released her debut EP, Perfectly Imperfect, on December 2, 2016. The five songs on the EP include all four of VanderWaal's original songs from AGT and another original, "Gossip Girl", all produced by Greg Wells. A Walmart version featured one additional song, "Missing You (Coffeehouse Version)".10 The EP debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart at No. 938 and was the best selling EP of 2016.39 The lead single, "I Don't Know My Name", debuted on Billboard's Digital Song Sales chart at No. 3740 and on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart at No. 24.41 Another song on the EP, "Light the Sky", was featured as background music in Google's "Year in Search 2016" video.42 VanderWaal promoted the EP with a series of appearances and performances. In November 2016, she performed "Light the Sky" and "Riptide" at halftime during a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden in New York City,43 and "I Don't Know My Name" in the 2016 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,44 on NBC's Today show11and at the Christmas tree lighting at South Street Seaport, in New York City, where she also sang "Light the Sky".4546 In December, she sang "I Don't Know My Name" on The Wendy Williams Show,47 at Cyndi Lauper's annual holiday fundraiser at the Beacon Theatre (where she also duetted with Lauper on "True Colors"),48 on CBS's The Talk,49 and at Z100's Jingle Ball Tour 2016 stop at Madison Square Garden.50 In reviewing the last event, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times commented: "One of the loudest receptions of the night was for Grace VanderWaal, a precociously thoughtful 12-year-old singer-songwriter-ukulele player".51 Later that month, VanderWaal returned to NBC's Today Show to sing "Light the Sky".52 2017–2018: Just the Beginning VanderWaal performing in 2018 In January 2017, VanderWaal sang "I Don't Know My Name" on Live with Kelly.53 She performed atop the Empire State Building for engaged couples at the building's Valentine's Day lighting event in February.54 In March 2017, she performed at WE Day Illinois at Allstate Arena to celebrate young people's action on social issues.55 She also sang "Light the Sky" at the annual benefit gala "One Night for One Drop", organized by Cirque du Soleil at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.56 The same month, VanderWaal appeared twice at the 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria, duetting with Jason Mraz on two of his songs at the opening ceremony and performing her own songs at the closing ceremony.5758 In April, she performed at WE Day charity events in Seattle,59 and Los Angeles,60 and she appeared at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards.61 Her May appearances included a fundraiser at Ramapo High School in New Jersey for The Valley Hospital's children's programs.62 In June 2017, VanderWaal launched Perfectly Imperfect in Japan, performing and meeting with fans there.63 She donated funds to help establish an elementary school show choir in the East Ramapo Central School District,64 sponsored scholarships for graduating seniors from each of Ramapo and Spring Valley High Schools pursuing music65 and another show choir at Chestnut Ridge Middle School.66 By early 2017, VanderWaal began working on a full-length album, eventually titled Just the Beginning, that she called "more produced ... really the same sound ... but less acoustic" than her debut EP.6768 She told an interviewer for Rookie magazine about how her process changed for the album, writing songs "on demand" with a collaborator: "I've never done this before; it's kind of weird to go into a room with usually a 30-year-old man and just be like 'Oh, let me open up about my life to you and write a super personal song!'"69 In June, she participated in VidCon's opening show, YouTube OnStage, in The Arena at Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California,70 where she premiered the first single from the upcoming album, "Moonlight".7172 She later released additional singles from the album.7273 In July, she performed at the Starkey Gala in St. Paul, Minnesota, to support hearing charities.74 In August, she returned to AGT as a guest performer, singing "Moonlight".75 The same month, Windex used VanderWaal's "Beautiful Thing" as the soundtrack to an advertisement,76 Honda used her cover of "Over the Rainbow" for a Japanese ad,77and SheKnows Media ranked "I Don't Know My Name" as one of the 16 most empowering songs for women so far in 2017.78 In September, VanderWaal performed on Live with Kelly and Ryan.79 The same month, she appeared on Treehouse Masters in an episode about the tree houses that VanderWaal had planned since her appearance on AGT,80 and modeled at New York Fashion Week for Marc Jacobs.81 VanderWaal promoted Just the Beginning with performances in September on Ellen82 and in October at the Austin City Limits Music Festival,83 where she was "one of the fest's biggest breakout acts ... whose soaring voice and sweet pop songs charmed large ... crowds."84 She performed at more WE Day events in Vancouver, British Columbia, in October85 and St. Paul, Minnesota, in November.86 VanderWaal released Just the Beginning on November 3, 2017.87 She sang "Moonlight" on Megyn Kelly Today on the release date.88 The album debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart at No. 22.89 She began her first solo concert tour, the Just the Beginning Tour, on November 5, 2017, which ran through February 2018.90 By September 2017, the tour had sold out.72 VanderWaal returned to Japan in late November to promote the album.91 In December, she appeared on the Today show.92 In March 2018, VanderWaal travelled to Kenya with the Starkey Hearing Foundation to help hearing-impaired youth there.93 In April, she performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.94 She was the opening act for Imagine Dragons in the North American leg of their Evolve World Tour from June to August 2018.95 During the tour, she also performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden96 and at the 2018 LoveLoud Festival.97 In December 2018, she returned to Live with Kelly and Ryan together with Ingrid Michaelson to perform their duet from Songs for the Season of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree".98 2019 In early 2019, VanderWaal released the single "Stray"99 and recorded her first soundtrack song, "Hideway", for the animated film Wonder Park.100 She plans to release "a collection of new songs" in mid-2019.13 VanderWaal is set to star in her first film as the title character in Disney's upcoming Stargirl, based on the 2000 novel of the same name. The film will be shown on Disney+, Disney's new streaming platform, that is expected to be introduced in 2019.101 VanderWaal's Instagram account has more than 3 million followers, her YouTube channel has more than 3 million subscribers,103 and her Facebook page has more than 1 million followers. Discography References